


The Famous Final Scene

by OneShotWonder



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-03
Updated: 2016-11-03
Packaged: 2018-08-28 19:55:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8460901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OneShotWonder/pseuds/OneShotWonder
Summary: A continuation from 'What Should Come to Be.'Sam and Dean have set up the school for new hunters at the bunker. Sam is married with kids and they continue to work when they can while getting used to the relative peace of their new lives. But there is something missing for Dean in this life, and a couple months before his 50th birthday, he makes a decision that will change everything.





	

Sam noticed a change in his brother. It started small. Dean’s laugh wasn't as big as it used to be when he played with his nephews and nieces. His voice wasn’t as booming during lectures to the new students. He slept more, or maybe, he just spent more time in his room in the bunker alone. Sam could tell he was tired. Probably more tired than he had ever been, and he had every right to feel it. Sam assured himself for a time that it was just a cause of getting older. The aches of time and innumerable battles finally showing up on his brother's weary face. Wrinkles like scars around his eyes and mouth. But Sam couldn’t keep up the delusion for much longer. His brother _was_ tired, but sooner or later he would have to face what that meant.

Sam couldn’t bring himself to be angry at the world anymore, there was just a deep hole of exhaustion were the anger used to rage inside him. Why couldn’t his brother have a couple more years of peace and happiness? Hell, he would take neutral and content at this point. Why wouldn’t just one thing work out for Dean in the end?

On the drive to the Roadhouse one weekend, Sam finally decided to bring it up. He was wary of this conversation, and he knew his brother would give the ol' Winchester ‘I’m fine’ about 20 times before he opened up, if at all. So Sam steeled himself for the argument and gently, in almost a whisper forced some words out.

‘Dean?’

He didn’t know what he was going to say, and he let his brothers name hang in the air between them, watching the raised eyebrow, the slight shift of concern.

‘You, uh, ok? I mean lately it’s been, tiring…’

Dean sat staring at the road for a minute and then pulled over to the shoulder. He waved the van on with Cas and Sam’s family inside. Pulling out his phone and sending a short text. ‘Go on ahead, we will meet you there.’ and sent it to Cas. This wasn't out of the ordinary that the brothers would want to stop on the short drive to the road house for some time, while Cas and the kids went along ahead of them. 

 

Sam sat still, feeling something building, not wanting to intrude on what his brother might say.

They sat for a minute in silence while Sam watched Dean collect his thoughts. He always needed more time than his younger brother to process before speaking and Sam knew him well enough to let him have it.

 

Finally, he laughed out a sigh, shaking his head as it hung down. He was smiling when he spoke, but he couldn’t keep the exhaustion out of his voice.

‘Ah Sammy! I was wondering how long before we had to have this talk…’

His face fell and he looked his little brother right in the eyes.

‘I need you to understand me Sammy.’ The nickname somehow pulling the air down like a weight. He spoke so slowly and deliberately, Sam was scared.

‘This life, it’s yours. It’s all I ever wanted for you. You might not have the picket fence, but you have the girl and family, and purpose.’

Why did this feel like a goodbye? Suddenly, D looked just like their father.

‘I feel useless…’ Sam made a sound of protest in his throat but Dean put a hand up to stop him. His words starting to speed up while he spoke.

‘I will be 50 in a few months Sam, not many of us get to that age. And I didn’t expect this, and I didn’t plan for this and it's all out of my control now. And the worst part, is that there are still all these evil things in the world. I can’t fight them like we used to.’ tears welled up in Dean’s eyes as looked out the window, a few speeding cars whipping past on the grey highway.

‘C’mon Dean we are doing good, with all these new hunters, I feel like we are finally making some progress.’

‘But it’s not enough! You know it's not enough, people are still dying. I am, will always be haunted by the things I have done. The people I couldn’t save, or the ones who I…’

Sam knew Dean wouldn't finish the though about hell, and so neither of them said it out loud.

‘All of these things have been running around in my head for a few months now and…’

‘What are you even trying to say?’ Sam snapped, angry, afraid for whatever betrayal his brother was about to confess to planning. He was hurt that Dean didn’t want to, or couldn’t, be happy that way he was.

‘I am going to do the trials Sam.’

 

Out of all the suicidal things Sam expected to come out of his older brother’s mouth, this was the last of them.

 

And he hated himself for even entertaining the idea, but his mind put it all together so quickly and it seems so logical, like such a good plan.

Dean felt out of place. Couldn’t be happy or content like he was fighting monsters in his youth. His older brother felt useless against this giant weight they had been working against their whole lives. He was still haunted by nightmares of his past actions and he would become a miserable old man given the chance. So the trials. The trials that would give him purpose again, that would ignite the fight in him. The trials that would close the gates of hell forever, a selfless deed to end all deeds. The trials that would wipe out more demons and monsters than every other hunt they had ever worked. The trials that would end the fight forever. The trials that would kill him.

It did seem logical, it did seem _right_ in some way, but then again, Sam rebelled against the idea like touching a hot stove.

Dean had a lot of character flaws, he was rash and bold and daring to the point of recklessness. But he had always survived. That was so deep a part of him that Sam didn’t even think he had noticed. No matter what they had run into, no matter the horrors they had seen, the torture they had been through, no matter what, Dean was a survivor. So this, this idea of giving up, or giving in, was so disgusting to Sam he could feel the bile in his throat.

Dean’s green eyes met his and Sam couldn’t hold back the tears anymore, he hated Dean for telling him all this, he hated him for saying it in the car that was their home, and he most of all hated the conviction he saw in Dean’s face.

His hand caressed the leather seats, trying to hold onto what little comfort he could.

Dean pulled him close, hugging him while he cried, feeling steady and sure with his hand on the back of Sam’s long hair.

‘I can’t do this without you!’ Sam choked on the words. Squeezing Dean in a tighter embrace. Not caring for a second that they were two old men weeping together in a car on the side of the road.

‘Yeah you can Sammy. You have so much here. You have a family, you have the school.’ Dean whispered with a sad smile on his face. Sam  pulled away, wiping tears and snot on the back of his coat sleeve.

‘Is there anything I can say?’

‘I don’t think so bitch, I have made up my mind.’ He was smiling. Dean was so cool and nonchalant about it. Sam could feel the sadness in him, but he could also feel some kind of relief, something he had wished to feel from his brother for the longest time.

‘Jerk..’ Sam choked on another sob, but tried to compose himself.

This is what Dean wanted, more than anything. To go out in the blaze of glory he had always imagined for himself. He had a chance to leave all this pain behind and find some kind of peace. He had a chance to save the world. How could Sam take that away from him? He knew the feeling so well it hurt. He didn’t have any other choice than to give his consent, to be there with his brother through all the painful trials, to be there with Dean until the end.

‘Fine. But you won’t do it alone.’ Dean looked surprised there wasn't more fight in Sam, but then again, he thought they understood each other enough at this point, maybe they finally had gotten past explaining.

‘I didn’t expect to.’ and D smiled. He was facing three arduous and no doubt very painful trials, but he was smiling like he had just won the lottery. And S did understand.

 


End file.
